


for blue skies

by flosculous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Psychopaths, F/M, Flower of Evil AU, Hermione’s solving case, Lots of psychological problems, Manipulation, Psychopath Tom Riddle, Psychopath in Love, Serial Killer Husbands, Serial Killers, Stolen Identity, Tom is his own warning, Tomione baby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:54:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flosculous/pseuds/flosculous
Summary: But nothing, except for the fact she was the only one dissecting those horrible headaches that shook her whole person to the point of wanting to stop and lay all of her days in the confinement of her room, could change her mindset that she, somehow, probably, annoyingly lost something important along the way.Tomione AU
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle, Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	for blue skies

**Author's Note:**

> But nothing, except for the fact she was the only one dissecting those horrible headaches that shook her whole person to the point of wanting to stop and lay all of her days in the confinement of her room, could change her mindset that she, somehow, probably, annoyingly lost something important along the way. 
> 
> Or: Hermione is determined to solve a mystery of serial killings that happened through the five years of her internship.

Rose blinks three times before her brownish eyes focus on something more interesting than her own mother. Freckles adorning her pink cheeks contrast with a pale skin she has got from her father. She is truly small, all fragile bones making such a beautiful creature that constantly craves attention and can't live without another human being. Truth to be told, she could gurgle any type of nonsense and Hermione would spin around her due to the amount of power she holds. 

Such a tiny human holding so much emotion. 

When she was born the thing was Hermione was  _ scared _ \- not the way every mother to be is, but more like the way you are scared about what genetics your child’s going to inherit. Rose should be intelligent, her mother is -- no one would say anything else, _ Hermione, she’s going to become x, y and z _ but never just Rose. Fear came in waves that woke her up in the greenish post labor room. She would stare at her baby and wonder, endless thoughts would sweep her in the riverbanks of self doubt and self hatred.  _ Smart, loveable and kind _ . That's the vocabulary her family used to describe possible personality traits of her child but Hermione couldn’t bear to look them in their eyes and ask. The questions rolled at the back of her throat like serpents, slick and full of venom, ready to bite any kind of given comfort. She was drowning in feelings that made her oddly silent throughout her stay at the hospital. After all, her face muscles hurt so badly from fake smiling that finally she closed the door to her private room and sat there for hours. 

_ Thinking _ . 

That small baby, her daughter, was destined to be innocent and good. Not a shred of negative characteristic and not a word about her father. What was he supposed to give her? Bone structure, for sure - it was visible, in all her childish glory even the blind person could see traces of her father in her outer appearance. The way her perky nose was set up high, like an aristocratic painting of cupids, even so befitting as her father in Hermione’s mind has always looked more like a marble sculpture than the figurines themselves. But nothing, except for the fact she was the only one dissecting those horrible headaches that shook her whole person to the point of wanting to stop and lay all of her days in the confinement of her room, could change her mindset that she,  _ somehow, probably, annoyingly _ lost something important along the way. 

The beige walls of her bedroom look golden when she wakes up from her trance and sees Rose held in delicate yet masculine arms. It's like she's hovering above her mother in the glory of sunshine and the electric buzz surrounding her father. Hermione frowns, an odd tick, and crashes her train of thoughts on the closest brick wall to openly stare at her husband. 

"And where did you go?" It's like an iceberg dividing into smaller parts, landing in the icy cold water that splashes her in the hues of blue and white, and if she closes her eyes she can see snow dropping down onto her hot cheeks, melting like a honey she adores. Variety of emotions flicker underneath her ribcage and it's like a drug, not that she has tried any, overpowering her senses and vision. 

"Tunnel," her strangled voice comes out and the male in front her adjusts their baby in his hold. Like a stronghold that no wave can overcome. "Was I gone for a while?" She stands up, attacks his personal space and takes Rose from him. Like a lifeline, a cry of help and frankly just to cover her trembling hands. 

Blue eyes meet hers and in a mute battle she loses again. 

"Rose started to cry, haven't you heard?" And now it's his long fingers prying the little girl from her and her muscles want to fight but she gives in. 

She takes one step back to see her family portrait displayed before her. 

"Tom," her tongue burns her throat as she clearly can spot similarities between father and daughter, just outer parts. She doesn't know if she's glad or disappointed, the emotions that whirl inside her are like a storm that can't settle down. Her husband watches her, no warmth on his porcelain face she sometimes wants to see crack. "It's nothing, nothing important," she finally decides to stop being a hero. 

*

Her job is  _ un Hermione _ like her parents used to call it. She should have been a dentist, lawyer, surgeon or even librarian but not the detective. How she - a bookworm with a maze instead of a brain could solve riddles and homicides? Yet, she feels like a queen in this field of work, leaving her goodness and righteousness behind she changes into a shell of Hermione everyone sees. 

There it is. 

The case. 

She loves cases, long and old, creepy too - anything darker than the alley behind their shabby building. 

She has devoted five years of her life to this enigma of a murder - a spectacle one could say. Serial killers weren't something she would describe as her hobby, maybe obsession if you will. 

Her brown hair tucked in a low bun, dark suit and her hand on the white board with photos of victims and red lines connecting the dots of possible murderer lairs. She's studying, learning, seeing things not seen by her colleagues. One little move here and she's brainstorming why would he decide to kill another one on the other side of the country. _You see_ , the pattern is very important, it somehow allows you to befriend the criminal, take a small glimpse inside their mind. And oh, it's fascinating, horribly so. How twisted minds work, how gears turn, how they breathe and live creating such a beautiful deception. 

Her wrist hurts from writing, blue letters appear one by one and she's so frustrated because he had stopped. Five years of her life, five and - seven murdered Jane Does without proper burial and family to weep at their empty tombstones. She has spent so many hours with this case and she got played. Biting her lips she writes the question -  _ why did you stop? _

Only phantomless eyes stare at her when she dives into oblivion of her own creation. 

*

Tom is many things. 

Cold, handsome, intelligent, mysterious and all of these things create a creature of many talents. 

He sits with Rose on his lap, feeding her in his pristine white shirt he bought for a tremendous price, yet he doesn't seem to mind his daughter's sticky fingers grabbing him by the collar. His mouth smiles but Hermione looks into his eyes - they are unmoving, dead. Rose claps her hands and Tom huffs with his parted lips and tucks a stubborn strand of his hair behind his ear. He gently puts the spoon away and observes their child with clinical patience and she moves, maybe it's an irrational part of her or her motherly instincts - she doesn't know but that gaze. That gaze she saw, like a predator considering his next victim, assessing its size and possibility of a struggle. She's next to them in a second, ripping Rose from his hands as he shots up and tries to overpower her with his height. 

"I didn't see her whole day," she gasps when he slowly nods and with a slow movement places a kiss on Rose's forehead. When he's gone she lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding but the baby cries. She wiggles in her arms, hands stretching towards the door where her father vanished. 

*

"I got a tip," Harry comes into her room with a vanilla envelope and she almost jumps on him when she sees Slughorn's name on it. 

"Wonderful," she purrs and hurries the green-eyed boy out of the interior so she can have a time alone with the new information. She tears the lid open and mumbles to herself as her keen eyes spot papers of notes and scribbles. She tears page after page, searching, looking, finding answers she can't have yet. 

And there it is. 

_ Interview with Riddle's son _ . 

Slughorn's writing is atrocious so she takes her time, word by word. 

_ …not feeling any remorse towards the dead cat…  _

_ …he says he doesn't have any friends, antisocial personality?...  _

_ …hates his father and mother, father uses violence… _

_...doesn't know the difference between happiness and sadness…  _

_ …while watching the dog dying on the cassette he started to laugh…  _

_ …psychopathic tendencies??...  _

_ …he said he doesn't want to kill another human being because moving the body would take a lot of his time…  _

_ …psychopath, manipulative behavior, antisocial personality… _

She leans backwards and closes her eyelids. The picture of young Riddle etched in her mind like a scar. 

*

"Hermione Smith?" She jerks her head and sees a young girl hovering above her. Blonde hair in a neatly placed plate and big brown eyes stare at her when she comes to the senses and realizes she fell asleep in the tube. Her identification card displayed on her shirt now feels like a burden but she quickly thanks the girl and quickly leaves. 

The air smells like wet asphalt as she stops before her flat, looking at the lit room in her apartment. Tom's babysitting Rose and she would lie if she said she was glad - her mother insisted that daughter-father bonding should be not disturbed but Hermione has seen everything by now, she became not so trusting. Taking her tired limbs up to the fifth floor she is met with a candle lit kitchen and dinner placed in her favorite blue plates. 

"Thought you would be ravenous," she feels his lips moving against the nape of her neck and before she can utter her answer he's kissing her. Hot and wet mouth parts her mounds as she allows him to possess her completely. Mint on his breath tickles her windpipe when he shoves her onto the couch as she can see her husband taking his clothes off. 

"Tom," her whisper is lost against his tongue on her abdomen. She wants to ask, she wants to hear his opinion but when his skilled fingers cup her breasts she falls into the deep. 

*

She looks at him. 

He doesn't notice it at first but then he also shots her questioning glances. But she has her motive - she watches him with Rose, his every move with their daughter is calculated in such precious precision that she can see he doesn't want to hurt her. 

"Do you love her?" She asks and he stills, walls around him jump to his defense. 

"That's an absurd question and you know it," he deflects and she feels that she should have been more upset, more disappointed but all she can do is study him more. 

"Why?" She presses and it hurts. Like a festering wound she can't let heal by re-opening its tissue time after time. 

"Because you know the answer, Hermione," he turns around and puts Rose in her bed and the muscles on his back are so tightly pressed that she thinks they could rip his shirt if he snapped. 

"Do you love me?" Her voice is like water, drowning them underneath its magnitude. Tom looks at her in his peripheral vision but says nothing. 

She should have guessed. 

But even now the wound tears itself centimeter by centimeter.

*

She goes to her work and thinks she should have stopped all of this five years ago. The case had messed up with her head too much, made her look like a paranoid woman and not a highly logical person. She's dusting her desk when the photograph catches her eye - young Riddle stares at her with so much familiarity that it makes her knees wobble a bit. Such coldness at such a young age, the features strikingly similar to another baby her mind can't let go. Her fingers touch the surface and - a loud bang resonates in her gabinet making her jump in place. 

"Harry!" She shouts and takes the photo, ruffling it inside the back pocket of her jeans. 

"Slughorn spilled," he heaves and shoves in her direction book of the family line. "Thomas Riddle had a son with the same name," his rough finger points to the one black arrow. "Young Riddle killed his father before leaving Little Hangleton. His father was the prime suspect of the killings of young women there and probably, that's Slughorn's assumption, he had young Tom watch him slaughtering them," Harry winces but quickly goes to another page. "Look, the diary ends here and for the most part Slughorn didn't know that Tom killed his father and left the village, but after few years someone found three dead bodies in one of the most secluded places in the country," he shows her pictures of massacred people laying face down on a horribly green carpet. "And one of them was presumed to be Tom Riddle even when his face was completely destroyed so the face tracking couldn't be applied," she stills for a moment but then she's looking closer, inspecting the picture bit by bit. "The family was declared as Smiths," he sheepishly looks at her and becomes slightly embarrassed. 

Hermione just drifts away. 

Though the wound inside her screams. 


End file.
